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Seed to Harvest
🎙️ Seed to Harvest | Stories from Technical Storytellers
Welcome to Seed to Harvest, the podcast by Behind Genius Ventures.
We talk to early-stage founders, operators, and investors—people building with code and conviction. Each episode is a chapter in their story: from the messy beginnings to the quiet pivots, from planting ideas to growing companies that matter.
Expect:
🌱 Honest conversations on the earliest chapters of company-building
🧠 Tactical insights from technical minds with narrative soul
✨ Reflections on resilience, rituals, and reinventing what’s possible
This podcast is for the builders who think in frameworks and metaphors. The ones who whiteboard in wild places. The ones writing their own mythologies—one commit, pitch, or poem at a time.
From spark to story.
From seed to harvest. 🌾
Seed to Harvest
Moth Fund Founding Partner Molly Mielke on enabling exceptional individuals early | Ep65
Today, I'm joined by Molly Mielke, Founding Partner at Moth Fund, an early-stage-focused venture capital firm that aims to increase the agency of exceptional individuals using both investment dollars and grants. Her fortes are: storytelling (ex-Stripe/Figma/Notion), early-career talent recruiting, and dot-connecting within the venture ecosystem (former Sequoia Scout). Molly’s goal is to establish a replicable funding model that aligns the economics to incentivize supporting individuals from exploration all the way through to world-shaping company.
Seed to Harvest is a podcast focused on stories & tactics from a diverse array of investors, founders, and creators, hosted by Paige Finn Doherty, a founding partner at Behind Genius Ventures and author of Seed to Harvest, an illustrated children's book for adults.
Connect with Paige 🌱💜
Behind Genius Ventures blog | https://www.behindgeniusventures.com/
Personal Blog | https://paigefinndoherty.com/
Twitter | https://twitter.com/paigefinnn
00:00 Welcome to Seed To Harvest: Molly Mielke
01:13 the idea for Moth Fund
03:57 the beauty of constraints
06:17 overcoming imposter syndrome
11:30 the most compelling trends
14:11 applying for a grant
16:56 finding exceptional individuals
22:00 early stage reflections
24:30 who impacted Molly's ideas?
Show notes:
Molly Mielke | https://twitter.com/mollyfmielke?lang=en
Moth Fund | https://www.mothfund.com/
Sequoia | https://www.sequoiacap.com/
Emergent Ventures | https://www.mercatus.org/emergent-ventures
Tyler Cowen | https://twitter.com/tylercowen
Schmidt Futures | https://www.schmidtfutures.com/
Arc Institute | https://arcinstitute.org/
Speculative Technologies | https://spec.tech/
YC | https://www.ycombinator.com/
Ways of Seeing | https://www.amazon.com/Ways-Seeing-Based-Television-Penguin/dp/0140135154
Brie Wolfson | https://twitter.com/zebriez?lang=en